Monday, October 1, 2012

We must not normalise hate speech by inaction

By Lukoye Atwoli
Sunday Nation 30 September 2012

Some time in the last century, a behavioural
scientist known as B.F. Skinner observed that random behaviours can be
shaped into a desired behaviour by way of reinforcement. In this
model, known as operant conditioning, random behaviour is “shaped” as
desired through a system that rewards the desired behaviour.

For
instance, a child who randomly gives up his seat for an elder and is
rewarded with praise or a gift is more likely to engage in similar
behaviour than one who does the same thing and is either ignored or
punished for it. This is a fundamental principle in learning and
is used in homes, schools, prisons and institutions in which certain
behaviours are expected and others frowned upon.

This brings us to
the matter of hate speech and how we have been handling it in this
country. In January 2008, at the height of the post-election violence, I
observed in the Daily Nation that: “... use of ethnic stereotypes must
be deemed taboo whether in public or in private. Use of insulting
language targeting whole communities must be discouraged whether on the
campaign platform or in the privacy of our homes.”

These
observations were made in the context of preventing future eruptions of a
similar nature, in the hope that Kenyans would learn their lesson and
adopt behaviour that would minimise the risk of violence and encourage
behaviour that promotes peaceful coexistence of all peoples. Unfortunately,
it appears that our social behaviour has not changed, probably due to
the wrong schedule of operant reinforcement.

Largely ignore

We
have set rules to prevent hate speech and incitement, but we largely
ignore those that engage in this behaviour that we have determined to be
obnoxious and inimical to our national goals. Many leaders in
the past who engaged in this sort of behaviour were not even made to
feel as if they had done something wrong. Indeed they were often
congratulated on their forthrightness and encouraged to keep it up.

After
we changed our laws and outlawed certain kinds of speech, we had an
episode where senior government officials allegedly engaged in hate
speech and were eventually arrested and charged. The tragedy is
that nobody was then convicted of these crimes, giving the impression
that it was sort of okay to engage in this kind of behaviour.

Recently,
another Cabinet minister was charged with a similar offence, but
managed to somehow wriggle out of criminal responsibility by delivering a
public apology, courtesy of the National Cohesion and Integration
Commission.

This may have emboldened another politician to go
into a cosmopolitan city constituency and allegedly order the eviction
of a section of the population that he accused of being foreigners and
killers. This politician then tried to follow in the footsteps of
his predecessor, and gave some sort of apology, after which he tried to
escape justice by hiding from the police and rushing to court to
pre-empt his arrest and prosecution.

It is clear in my mind that
how we handle these very public instances of hate speech and incitement
will determine the tone of the forthcoming campaigns, and probably the
aftermath of the next General Election. All arms of government,
therefore, need to be vigilant and initiate a culture of operant
conditioning of all citizens if we hope to gradually eliminate this
atavistic behaviour.